One day Ned went off alone in a search for the hut with the strange inscription. But he could not find it. Either he could not locate the place where he had seen it or the cabin had been moved.
“I’d like to get at the bottom of this,” he murmured, as he tramped back home. “There’s a method in the madness of those men, I’m sure.”
But, if there was, Ned little dreamed what it portended.
“To-morrow’s the last day of school this term,” remarked Fenn, one afternoon as he and his chums strolled home. “My, but I’m glad of it! Those exams., especially the algebra, nearly floored me. Lucky there’s no more.”
“Never mind,” said Bart. “Forget it. We’ll have a lot of sport to-morrow. We can cut up a bit and the teachers won’t mind.”
“That’s so,” spoke Ned. “I’ve got to do something. I can feel it in my bones! Whoop! It must be something worthy of the Darewell Chums!” He began to do an impromptu war dance.
“Don’t get us into trouble,” came from Frank.
“Trouble? Did I ever get you into trouble?”
“Oh, no,” replied Bart sarcastically. “There wasn’t any trouble when you put the live frogs in Miss Mapes’s desk and scared her and all the other women teachers nearly into fits. There wasn’t any trouble when you let a lot of mice loose in the girls’ department. There wasn’t any trouble when you brought Jimmy Dodger’s pet coon in and yelled that it was a skunk. We didn’t get blamed for it all, did we? Oh, no, I guess not. Say, Ned, if you’re going to cut up, send in an advance notice that it’s your own doings and none of ours.”